Embodiment Hour Tomorrow @ 12p EST at The Stoa ~ End Times and Masculinity

Join me tomorrow at The Stoa for an hour of embodied sensemaking in community!

Screen shot from a new video by Radiohead artists, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Free In the Knowledge, released today.

Dear Friends,

Join us tomorrow at noon for another session of Embodiment Hour at The Stoa. This practice is part of The Stoa’s Wisdom Gym. The idea is that practices like embodiment, breathwork, and collective presencing are part of a regular discipline and require many “reps.” Just like going to the gym is good for the body, going to the Wisdom Gym is good for the Being and will help us become the wise ones we are meant to be, and must be if we hope to address the “wisdom famine.”

Speaking of going to the gym…

Each week we look at a piece of cultural stimulus that is trending in the popular conversation or zeitgeist. This week we’ll take in some clips that portray different views of masculinity in these times. The inspiration came early in the week when I was made aware of Tucker Carlson’s trailer for his new original series, The End of Men.

nikki mccann ramírez @NikkiMcR

I promise you are not prepared for Tucker's latest montage

The video was immediately and widely mocked by the mass media and commentators on social media. It was lampooned by Colbert and remixed and edited all over the internet (scored with YMCA, edited together with scenes from The God Squad…) with an emphasis on its “homoerotic undertones.” There was also a lot of consternation about a dramatic visual of a man standing naked in front of a red light therapy box, “tanning his testicles.” Carlson’s response was that there is a crisis of testosterone and men need to do something about it! Why are we mocking the solutions and not talking about the problem?

What’s been less talked about — partly due to the extreme effect of the strong visual imagery — is the underlying message about civilization collapse and rebirth. Here is part of the transcript:

"Once a society collapses 
then you’re in hard times.
Well, hard iron sharpens iron, as they say.
And those hard times inevitably 
produce men who are tough, 
men who are resourceful,
men who are strong enough to survive.
And they go on to reestablish order
and so the cycle begins again."

I have a particular grievance with the way some masculine ideas about creation seem to forget completely the role of women and the feminine in the life-death-life cycle. Silicon Valley is a great example: exponential growth, extractive practices, disembodied and dissociative results, ultimately yielding destruction and all completely out of harmony and balance with Life and Nature.

This video got under my skin in the suggestion that it is strong men who will rebuild the culture—like that’s a given. Yes, they have a role. We need our men strong in many ways and for many reasons, but where are the women? Where are the elders? Where are the other creatures of creation? Where is the reverence for the feminine, for The Mother?

As I was contemplating this, another video passed through my field. This one is a dose of indigenous wisdom from a Peruvian man, Arkan Lushwala. He is also talking about cycles in this video, but I found his demeanor and message very different in important ways. I’m sure you will, too. To me it boils down to fear-based prepping versus the wisdom of a life lived in harmony with forces much greater than us.

As for the music video from Thom Yorke and friends (link above), it is a fascinating montage of mysterious imagery depicting a form of male pain, grief, memory. This may be simplistic, but I wonder if this intensity is some of what underlies the drive to prepare, protect, and distract oneself by pumping up the muscles and tanning the testicles? I know there’s much more to it…just proposing some of what begins to percolate for me. I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.

Beyond the jokes on Twitter and culture wars, there is a more nuanced conversation to be had. Let’s see if we can find it.